Join us for an evening conversation with photographers Joe Dilworth and Sebastian Mayer. Readers will know that a selection of images and anecdotes from each photographer’s ‘life with music’ featured in the first and second issues of the magazine, and together with artist, photographer, professor & critic Allison Wade, we’ll gather in Berlin for a talk show at Smaragd.

Our title for the night suggests the talk won’t only be about approaches to looking and the stories behind the pressing and releasing of the shutter but also publicity, representation and PR in music culture today…and yesterday. Accompanied by a slideshow, we’ll talk about how artists across the industry have crafted and presented their image(s) alongside their music. We’ll pry and listen to opinions and anecdotes from how these two photographers have communicated with artists’ ideas and intents— for the iconic or just the opposite: rip-it-up and on-to-the-next. We’ll also share thoughts on how the photographers’ ideas and images have gone through publishing and censorship processes and I don’t doubt we’ll get to our present moment: in which artists represent and broadcast themselves across multiple platforms and the speed, value and effect of these communications. This is set to be an engaging, fun, critical and of course, participatory (Q & A) and unpredictable conversation.

This event is FREE.

Drink service and light fare will be available and an ‘after party’ is TBA at the event. Also, space is limited at Smaragd so please consider an RSVP on the Facebook event page.

Since the release of our first issue, in which iconic photographer Glen E. Friedman featured in a lengthy interview, the magazine has been steadily working to set up a live talk event with the photographer in Washington. When Glen’s latest monograph, MY RULES (Rizzoli, 2014) was published last year, launch events in New York and Los Angeles took place and knowing that a portion of Friedman’s work was shot in Washington or captured DC-related subjects, I felt the need to invite Glen to do an event with the magazine. Over the last year, the idea slowly matured and went through a few stalls but remained resolute. When the DC Punk Archive was instituted last year, I thought it would be a great place to have the talk, after all, they were having punk bands perform live, right in the lobby of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library.

As part of the one-year anniversary celebrations of the DC Punk Archive, HIGHWAY has collaborated with the new collection, along with support from The DC Public Library Foundation, to set up a live talk with the skate, punk and hip-hop photographer and Alec MacKaye (Untouchables, The Faith, Ignition).

On Sunday, October 25th, the live discussion will also feature a short video, Q & A session and time for book signing. Copies of MY RULES will be made available for sale courtesy of Upshur Street Books (who also stock HIGHWAY) and another HIGHWAY stockist, Smash! Records, will have a pop-up shop. This event will take place in The Great Hall.

From January 25th to February 15th, Cool Drool (1983, 14m:44s) by sound artist and sound ecologist Hildegard Westerkamp is installed for listening on the Exterior Sounds audio box located at Audio Visual Arts, 34 East 1st Street, New York.

Cool Drool is unlike Westerkamp’s other sound recordings as entire pieces of existing music composed by others feature throughout the composition. Composed and performed over two decades ago, the piece is dated and includes sounds which have disappeared from today’s commercial and social environments, cues which squarely place the sound piece in the early 1980s. Commenting on the piece, Westerkamp has claimed, “Muzak divorces music from its original context. Cool Drool uses Muzak to connect music again with a social reality.” Installing the recording on the Exterior Sounds box is providing an updated and new urban context for the listener.

Hildegard Westerkamp is featured in the first issue of HIGHWAY and discusses Cool Drool among other sound works, a history of contemporary background and personalized music, streaming music services, and our [manufactured] addiction to music.

The Exterior Sounds box, part of the gallery program at Audio Visual Arts, features four 3.5mm headphone inputs for passerby listeners to plug in their own headphones and is also featured in our first Fall 2014-Winter 2015 issue.

Issue 3 is in production...

Newsletter for announcements and events:

HIGHWAY is an intermittent publication about life with music. The print and iOS editions are pocket-sized companions to the musicians, writers, artists, thinkers, documentarians, storytellers and objects we encounter.

Today, there are readers and listeners with a new curiosity into how these subjects and objects practice, converse, resonate and are remembered in the international worlds of music and sound.HIGHWAY is for them.

Here's what they're saying:

"Refreshingly eclectic"— mono.kultur

"Excellent music journalism...It's a pity I am
no longer a commuter: this is one of those
perfect-sized books for long train rides. You
read an article, stare out of the window and
then read the next.
The big question is: where to get this?"— Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly

“Its take on music is smart and unexpected.”
—ArtWorks, NEA

"The format is fantastic. I haven't been able to
safely tuck a magazine into my pocket for
many a year. And the contents are great, most
of the pieces are bite-sized and really well done.
Can't wait for the next issue."— Byron Coley

"Small, but mighty." — WAMU 88.9FM Bandwith

"An enormous range of content." — Revista METAL

"Nice selection of articles— and with that small scale, you can potentially do wonders."— Alessandro Ludovico